Tag Archives: weather

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It was a perfect trifecta of bad luck – the coldest day of the year by far, not enough snow to insulate foundations, and an outage that left roughly 1,500 Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC) members without power for about 12 hours Sunday. Barton and Orleans electric customers were out as well.

A day later, or a day earlier, and it might have been a different story. But by Sunday afternoon… To read the rest of this article, and all the Chronicle‘s stories, subscribe:

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Lake Region Union High School boys baseball coach Eric Degre steps outside to survey the baseball field Friday. “There’s two feet of snow on the ground now,” he said. “And we’re expecting more over the weekend.” Though Mr. Degre has reason to feel blue — the pitcher’s mound can be seen just above center frame — he intends to take his team to Florida for spring break. Photos by David Dudley

copyright the Chronicle April 8, 2015

by David Dudley

Each year around April 1, the weather plays its own April Fool’s prank on the Northeast Kingdom. For young athletes in the area, the first day that the temperature rises above 30 degrees engenders an irrepressible need to get outside and play.

That need is only magnified for high school athletes. The delays caused by weather such as this year’s, where winter shows every sign of hanging on, can mean less time for practice, and could give opponents in a less snowy clime a competitive edge.

Spring sports coaches have to be on top of their game to face this challenge. They have to figure out resourceful ways to practice outdoor sports while indoors.

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Bob Butterfield’s son, Ethan, is pictured with his seven-month-old heifer, Chloe, on one of the Spring Hill Angus farms, in Barton. Chloe was an embryo transplant calf, or “E.T.” for short. Her egg was taken from a top-ranking heifer. Chloe is off to Randolph, New York, soon, to be auctioned at the New York State Angus Association sale. Her genetics make her a desirable purchase, Mr. Butterfield said. Someone from Montana has already expressed interest. Photos by Natalie Hormilla

copyright the Chronicle May 7, 2014

by Natalie Hormilla

BARTON — The price of beef in most stores is at a record high, and the price of locally raised beef is getting higher, too.

The average price of a pound of ground beef in most U.S. states hit almost $3.70 for the month of March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI).

That average price was up from $3.55 in February and $3.47 in January. In March of 2013, it was $3.33; four years ago, it was $2.24.

Just like in the rest of the country, shoppers at the C&C Supermarket in Barton have been wondering why the prices have been so high lately.

“We had a sign over the meat department for three months, stating why we had higher beef prices,” said Ray Sweeney, who works in the meat department at the C&C. “Just to kind of explain ourselves.”

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Wind from the Valentine’s Day snowstorm made for some big dunes and interesting sculptures, like this cresting wave that formed on a West Glover porch. Photo by Nathaniel Gordon

copyright the Chronicle February 19, 2014

Question: At around 3:30 a.m. Friday, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of lightning in the middle of a snowstorm. I have since Googled it and now know it wasn’t an alien taking our photo (my other theory at that hour, since I didn’t think lightning during a snowstorm was possible.)

Answer: Between 3 and 4 a.m. on the morning of this past Friday, February 14, some people were awakened by lightning and/or thunder. Reports were received from Barnet, St. Johnsbury, and Barton. Very heavy snow fell from then until about 7 a.m. Snowfall rates of 2-3 inches per hour were noted.

“I don’t have any numbers on its frequency,” he said. “But lightning as frequent as Saturday’s is something I’ve never experienced with snow falling.”

The official term for a thunderstorm with snow is “thundersnow.”

Thunder and lightning might occur once or twice a winter in the state, Mr. Bouchard said. But generally it’s very localized.

“There might be one flash over one town. This last event was pretty unusual because there were hundreds of lightning strikes on Saturday night, in lots of towns. I’ve seen snowstorms with a flash here and there, but nothing with frequent lightning like that.”

One reason thunderstorms don’t often occur in winter is because warm air is usually behind their development, and there just isn’t much warm air around in winter.

Thunderstorms are caused by rapidly rising air currents, which form very tall clouds, sometimes billowing up over 40,000 feet in height.

Inside the thunderstorm, charge separations occur. “No one is exactly sure how that happens,” Mr. Bouchard said. “A leading theory is that the different types of precipitation particles found within thunderstorms force a charge separation when they collide.”

Every thunderstorm produces both snow and graupel (also known as soft hail), even during the summer months. Normally, warm air near the surface forces these to melt into rain before they reach the ground. Updraft speeds vary from the inner core to the outer edges of the storm. That means that in some parts of the cloud, snow rises at the same time that heavier graupel is falling past it. That leads to a lot of mini-collisions.

“We know the snowflakes are traveling upward with a positive charge,” Mr. Bouchard said. “Snowflakes go up because they’re light and fluffy.”

The lower portion takes on a negative charge as graupel falls through it. Once the charge difference builds to a high enough level, it can overcome the resistance of the air, and you get a big static discharge, Mr. Bouchard said. “That’s lightning.

“The best way to get updraft speeds sufficient to produce lightning is with warm air, and we don’t often have warm air around in the winter,” he said.

Saturday night there was warm air rising into thunderstorm updrafts however, as air originating over the Atlantic moved in.

“There was a lot of rising motion, and that led to the charge separation that caused the thunder and lightning.

“It’s pretty unusual to see snow with thunderstorms in Vermont. It usually happens with Nor’easters. But typically with Nor’easters lightning is very sporadic and unpredictable.”

A power line on Roaring Brook Road between West Glover and Barton. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

by Bethany M. Dunbar

copyright the Chronicle 12-23-2013

An ice storm has knocked out power in northern Vermont and beyond. Monday morning David Hallquist of Vermont Electric Cooperative said the storm is unprecedented in the amount of damage it’s done because it’s so widespread geographically. About two-thirds of the cooperative’s coverage area lost power.

Mr. Hallquist said crews are working hard to restore power to everyone.

“We’ve got all the king’s horses and all the king’s men trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again,” he said. Continue reading →

A horse grazes on what’s left of its pasture, along Elm Street in Barton, just as Tuesday’s downpour subsides. Photo by Chris Braithwaite

by Tena Starr

“It’s kind of a nightmare.”

That’s how Brandon Tanner of Glover described this summer’s weather and his own efforts to put in hay for his dairy cows.

“It’s one of those things where you’re forced this year to get what you can get when you can get it,” Mr. Tanner said. “There’s no planning, no helping other people. It’s sort of you do yours when you can do it the best you can.”

Farmers, strawberry growers, boaters, anyone who enjoys a day at the beach — they’re all likely to say “Enough already.”

Although Mother Nature isn’t.

There’s some hope that by the end of the week the stubborn weather pattern will break down, permitting a couple of consecutive rain-free days by the weekend, said meteorologist Lawrence Hayes at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury.

The problem, he said, is that Vermont has been stuck in between two upper level features involving a serpentine jet stream that moves northward. The sources of its air is the Gulf of Mexico and the southeast coast, hence the subtropical air in Vermont.

Also, “the air has been so copiously humid (dew points around 70) that any shower that forms is risk of generating at least moderately heavy rain,” Mr. Hayes said by e-mail.

The result of all this has been a lot more rain than usual, as well as more rainy days, in both May and June.

According to the Chronicle’s weather records (which record weather in West Glover) precipitation in May was 7.88 inches — almost double the long-term average of 4.03 inches, and exceeded only in May of 2011. It also snowed in May. The Chronicle’s weather records go back to 1987.

In June, there was some rain in West Glover on 21 out of 30 days. It added up to 6.23 inches, well above the long-term average for June of 4.14 inches.

In St. Johnsbury the 14-day stretch of measurable rainfall from June 23 to July 7 was the longest consecutive day stretch there during the warm weather season, meaning May through October, Mr. Hayes said.

For most, the soggy weather is simply an annoyance. But for some, it has economic consequences, as well.

Peak View Berry Farm in Orleans doesn’t have any strawberries at all this year, although it’s not due to the wet weather that’s plagued so many strawberry growers in Vermont.

“We lost our strawberries in January when the thaw came and then it got so cold in February,” said Michelle Bonin, who owns the farm with her husband, Marcel. “The thaw literally pushed all of our plants out of the ground. That was something we’d never seen.”

The Bonins have since put in 13,000 new plants and are hoping to have a crop from the ever bearers in October. But even tending the new plants is tough with the wet weather.

“A few days ago I wanted to cultivate my strawberries and couldn’t because of the mud,” Marcel Bonin said. “The ground is saturated. I’d have a mess.”

In Westfield, Gerard Croizet at Berry Creek Farm said he’s lost 20 to 25 percent of his strawberries to the weather, mold in particular.

The berries are big, although softer than usual, and the yield has been good, he said.

It could be a lot worse, though, Mr. Croizet said. “I know some people lost most everything.”

“I’m not depressed,” he added.

Both the Croizets and the Bonins grow vegetables as well as berries, and say that weeding is a big problem with their fields so wet. And while some crops are doing well in the subtropical weather, others are struggling.

Mr. Croizet said he’s worried about disease at this point, particularly late blight, which might make an early appearance due to the moisture.

“I don’t remember nonstop rain like that,” he said.

“I think it’s extraordinary, I think it’s quite dramatic for the whole area,” Mr. Bonin said about the unusually long stretch of rainy days.

He said his Orleans farm stand is usually open by the last week in June. It’s not this year. “I don’t have anything to put in it,” Mr. Bonin said.

For dairy farmers, the persistent rain not only makes it hard to make any hay, but also the quality suffers.

Most farmers make round bales these days — those plastic wrapped bales that resemble giant marshmallows. It takes a comparatively short stretch of dry weather to make a round bale as opposed to a square one, but this summer has daunted even those attempts.

It takes at least a couple of days to “put up something that’s not going to be an ice cube,” Mr. Tanner said.

If the hay is too wet, it will be frozen solid come winter when the farmer wants to feed it to his animals, he said.

That’s one problem. Another is that some fields are so wet farmers can’t even get on them to hay.

And yet another is that grass, especially orchard grass, declines in quality — meaning it loses protein — once it begins to head out.

“You can always supplement grains in order to make up what you lost on your grass, but especially the past three years, that’s been sort of unaffordable,” Mr. Tanner said.

He said that last year, a classic summer, he squeezed in five cuts of hay. “This year, so far, I’ve done one. I’ll be lucky if I get three.”

Evan Perron isn’t overly worried about the weather, even though he’s one of the few who still makes square bales.

“The hay I cut will be just fine, for horses, ponies, sheep, it will still be 10-12 percent…it’s nothing you could turn into milk and survive,” he said.

Mr. Perron said that when he was a kid it was common to wait until after July 4 to start haying. “There was a time we might not have thought much of it,” he said about the long rainy stretch. “We’d just be a week late.”

But now that people try to get 20 or 30 percent protein from their hay, “it’s a pretty big deal,” he said.